Episode No. 10 recap: "The Ultimate Fighter 10: Heavyweights"

After a quick recap of last week’s episode and Roy Nelson’s advancement to the semifinals, episode No. 10 kicks off with the latest quarterfinal bout.

We begin with a Team Rashad training session in which Rashad Evans raves about his team and the chemistry. Shortly thereafter, Matt Mitrione approaches his coach and says he went to the doctor. He says some minor brain swelling led to a migraine, and with a little dehydration, he was thinking and moving a little slower than usual. However, he’s hopeful he can still fight his quarterfinal bout, he says, though he’s anything but reassuring.

However, the coaching staff then tells Matt that there’s no way any doctor would allow that if he’s really dealing with swelling of the brain and that something like that is life-threatening. They then press him to make a decision then and there to decide if he’s going to fight.

But no decision is made.

In a confessional, assistant coach Trevor Wittman says there’s no way Matt has swelling of the brain and that he’s making it up and that, “It really, really bothers me.” When talking privately with the coaching staff, Trevor questions whether Matt really wants to be a fighter, and Rashad suggests maybe he’s looking for a way out.

When some Team Rampage and Team Rashad members powwow back at the house, they all seem upset that Matt may duck out of the competition when they all (his opponent, James McSweeney, chief among them) came there to fight. Brendan Schaub lightens the mood when he suggests Matt may just be playing head games with everyone.

“I’ll beat his ass,” James says.

Back at a Team Rampage training session, Quinton Jackson tells the team that he heard Matt will, in fact, fight. But he wants them to remain on standby anyway. He then tends to Kimbo Slice, who’s dealing with a knee injury and complains of some discomfort after a grappling session with Demico Rogers. However, they tell him he needs to be ready to go and also be ready for James to throw kicks at his bum knee if he gets the fight.

As Brendan prepares for his fight with Jon Madsen, he says he’s not too worried about dealing with his opponent’s standup game. He calls Jon a great wrestler but fairly one-dimensional and says he just needs to worry about takedowns. They then bring Rashad, a former Michigan State wrestler, into the cage to help. Rashad, though, said he can’t do that and give one teammate an advantage over the other. His teammates, though, are more than willing and offer some last-minute advice.

Slice, meanwhile, gets a house call from the doctor, who visits the gym to break some bad news: Slice is missing cartilage in his knee and it’s been slowly disappearing over the years. There are some short-term solutions to help him fight through it, but it appears this will be a lifelong ailment for the big guy.

The following day, we head to the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. It’s the coaches challenge episode tonight. After everything from bowling to basketball to table tennis, what’s in store for this season’s coaches?

“Beach volleyball, and it’s between two guys who have never played beach volleyball,” Dana White jokes.

Dana says it’ll be Rampage and assistant coach Tiki vs. Rashad and assistant coach Mike Van Arsdale. The winning head coach gets $10,000, and each fighter from the winning team gets $1,500.

To Dana’s surprise, the guys actually play pretty decently. Hell, Tiki has a pretty effective overhand serve. At 14-8, Team Rampage barely gets the ball back over the net, but Dana says it’s out of bounds, and Team Rampage takes the first game.

In Game Two, Team Rashad takes an early lead and holds on for the 15-10 win.

In the definitive Game Three, Team Rashad again jumps to an early lead. Dana says it’s turned into “a really good volleyball game” when it’s 13-13, and Team Rashad takes the final two points to take yet another victory.

“Rampage is seriously pissed off,” Dana says. “But he actually shakes everyone’s hand, including Rashad’s, as painful as that must have been for him.”

Rashad tells Rampage he’ll let him touch his stack of money. Rampage, though, says he doesn’t need to and probably made $10,000 during the time they were there. Rashad then says if he’s so rich, he should go ahead and give his guys $1,500 each.

Rampage then asks the guys if they’d rather have $1,500 of watch him knock out Rashad, presumably at their since-canceled UFC 107 fight. I wonder if the checks are in the mail now that Team Rampage won’t get to see the KO.

Back at the house, Slice is still dealing with knee problems and takes a midnight dip in the pool and then an icebath. The Miami native hates the cold as he submerges belly-button deep in the icy water. His cast mates crack up as Kinbo struggles between laughing and crying from the polar plunge. A quick trip to the hot tub, though, brings eventual relief.

At a Team Rashad training session, Jon gets some one-on-one time with Rashad. Brendan finds it odd since Rashad turned his request for some training time. Brendan, though, surmises they’re simply drilling wrestling techniques Jon already knew and doesn’t seem too bothered after checking it out up close.

After a commercial break, Team Rashad regroups for a new training session, and Rashad pulls aside Matt and wants to know if he’s ready to fight. Matt says he “has no choice” and is going to fight. Rashad, though, says there’s no reason to go in there if his heart isn’t in it. Rashad then asks if he feels like he’s being forced into the fight, and Matt says that’s kind of the case.

“You’re making us sound like [expletives],” Rashad tells him.

He then reiterates you can’t go into the octagon without being 100 percent, and if you do, a serious injury is likely.

“I’m tired of this dramatic bull [shit],” Matt says in a confessional.

In a confessional of his own, Rashad then says he’s tempted to tell Dana that Matt shouldn’t be fighting. Dana shows up to the gym shortly after and gives his traditional “do you wanna be a fighter” speech. While not mentioning names, the speech was at least “99 percent” directed at Matt, the NFL vet surmises. Dana then says we’ll find out tomorrow if he can be medically cleared to fight and that Matt shouldn’t feel “like a pussy” if it turns out he doesn’t want to be fighter.

A stone-faced Matt, though, doesn’t say a thing.

With that matter un-resolved, we go ahead and weigh in Brendan (239 pounds) and Jon (247). Brendan has the height and reach advantage, but the stout Madsen can easily win the fight if he takes it to the mat, Dana says.

The fighters warm up backstage, and to help Brendan get amped up, James gives him a couple good smacks across the face. (Good thing the adrenaline was going, or those things would’ve hurt.)

The fighters take the cage, and Dana makes the introductions. It’s an all-Team Rashad quarterfinal matchup as Brendan (4-0) takes on Jon (1-0).

No touch of gloves opens the fight, and Jon shoots early. Brendan stuffs it, and we restart again. The fighters keep their distance and test their range for the next minute until Jon shoots again. He gets an arm between Brendan’s legs, and picks up and slams him to the mat. Brendan immediately crawls on his back to try to improve position and get away from the cage as Jon works from half-guard. Jon throws short punches and knees to the body before a solid right lands. Brendan continues trying to improve his position as Jon tries to push him back into the cage. Brendan, though, uses his arms and legs to push off the cage, and after a couple warnings to get busy, the ref calls for a restart. Once there, Jon shoots for a single leg, but Brendan stuffs it and delivers some knees to the body. Jon works for underhooks and presses his opponent into the cage, but Brendan reverses the position and delivers some of his own knees to the midsection. Brendan is warned about grabbing his opponent’s shorts, and when he breaks, Jon picks him up and slams him again to the mat with a dramatic takedown. Brendan again tries to improve his position and move away from the fence as Jon works from side control. Brendan locks up a leg and delivers jabs to the gut as Jon offers little from his dominant position. Jon sneaks in a decent right as the horn sounds, and the first round belongs to Jon, 10-9.

Between rounds, Rashad nervously sways cageside. Jon is told he can end it if he gets to mount, and Brendan gets smacked again as James tells him to take out his opponent.

Josh Rosenthal gets the second frame started, and Jon looks a little gassed while he sucks in some deep breaths. Brendan begins pawing his jab, misses with a right, eats a right and then tries to defend the single-leg takedown. He does and delivers some knees to the body while clinched. The fighters remain clinched and jockey for position, and Brendan delivers knees and then defends another takedown attempt. The fighters break, and both now look a little gassed. Brendan, though, slowly works Jon into a corner and then lands one big right that stuns and another big straight right that instantly drops Jon. As Brendan goes in for the kill, the ref quickly intervenes and declares a TKO stoppage.

Brendan struggled against the takedowns but showcased his KO power when it mattered most. Jon’s really going to regret that he left his chin openm and he says as much in a post-fight confessional.

As the fighters and coaches react to the fight, Rashad looks disappointed and says Brendan grabbed the fence so many times that he probably should have had a point deduction. Jon says he became fatigued, got a little too relaxed and “got hit with straight two.”

Rashad, though, says he’s impressed by the knockout.

The fighters shake hands and congratulate each other before Brendan takes to the center of the cage to have his hand raised.

Dana, meanwhile, says it’s impressive when someone can overcome someone’s clear strong point, such as Jon’s wrestling, to pull off the win.

In a preview for next week’s episode, we see Matt and Marcus Jones nearly come to blows (with Marcus the apparent instigator), and we’re told we’ll get resolution to Matt’s situation and whether Kimbo may fill in for him. We’ll get the final two quarterfinal fights and reduce this season’s cast to the final four.

Catch new episodes of “The Ultimate Fighter: Heavyweights” every Wednesday at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Spike TV. MMAjunkie.com will recap each episode of the reality series, and full series coverage can be found on “The Ultimate Fighter 10” page.

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